About This Quiz

Languages are always changing and evolving. While at the core they stay the same, there are definitely some words that your grandparents used as young whippersnappers that might sound a little funny and dated to modern ears.

English, especially, has been spoken in so many countries and gone through so many changes over the centuries that it's chock-full of archaic (and sometimes downright funny) slang that most people today definitely do not regularly use. When was the last time someone said they were getting sent to the hoosegow? Perhaps it's time we resurrect it! On the flip side, Some modern words are older than you might even think. The word grifter, for example, has been around since roughly 1910. That's over 100 years of mileage! It can be a lot to grasp, but it's so much fun to see what wacky expressions people cooked-up in centuries past.

Then again, people might look back at our slang and wonder why we thought "selfie" and "dumpster fire" were "hella tight." If you're a lover of the English language in all its colorful glory, take this quiz to see if you're really the bees knees!

This word comes from the 1930s. While modern people know it better from the clothing brand, Abercrombie and Fitch, back in the day it was used to describe someone who thought they were smarter than everyone else.

The 1920s are not particularly known for their green way of life, and a car considered inefficient or a "hayburner" back in the early days of cars would have had to have been exceptionally bad. It means it went through gas as quickly as fire goes through hay (which is really fast.) A "hayburner" was also a losing racehorse.

This term likely originated as British Army slang from the Second Boer War (at the turn of the twentieth century.) It referred to high-tar, unfiltered cigarettes and their detrimental effects on the troops' ability to breathe.

This one is comes from the name of a town, Mafeking, that survived a siege during the Boer War. When it was over, the people celebrated (quite loudly) in the streets. This gave birth to the word "mafficking."

This one comes from the 1920s. An "egg" is someone who leads an absurdly rich lifestyle. This is referenced in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, "The Great Gatsby," where the wealthy characters lived in the towns of West Egg and East Egg.